Hello world!
October 1, 2007
This may just be one of the least appealing blogs on the whole of the Internet, but never mind: here we are. Inspired by Astronomy Picture of the Day, we thought we should bring the same concept to the much more exciting science of sauropod vertebrae — but with a more realistic schedule.
In case you don’t know, sauropods are dinosaurs — but not just any dinosaurs: the biggest, best and most fascinating of them all. For most fossil vertebrates (animals with backbones) the skull bones are the most distinctive and informative, but sauropod skulls are fragile and easily disarticulated from their necks, and so rarely found. Instead, much of what is known about sauropods is known from their vertebrae, which are much more complex than those of other animals.
Our mission is to present you with beautiful pictures of interesting sauropod vertebrae. That’s all.
“We” is Mike Taylor, Matt Wedel and Darren Naish, a trio of palaeontologists. Matt and Darren have their Ph.Ds, Mike is working on his; Mike and Matt specialise in sauropods, while Darren favours theropods but moonlights in the sauropod world from time to time. Mike and Darren and English, Matt is American.
To start us off, here is nice photograph of one of the most iconic of sauropod vertebrae, the 8th cervical of the Brachiosaurus brancai type specimen HMN SII, in left lateral view.
This vertebra, along with the rest of the vertebral column of Brachiosaurus brancai, was described by Werner Janensch in 1950, in one of a series of monographs exhaustively describing the osteology of this species. I (Mike) took this photo at the Humboldt Museum in Berlin, in March 2005. The vertebra is 113 cm in length, including the prezygapophyses.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
October 2, 2007 at 7:12 pm
This is basically a test comment, but I wanted my co-bloggers to note that I’ve been screwing around with the image settings, so if anything looks messed up, it’s okay. We can fix it.
October 4, 2007 at 11:46 am
That is a cool bone. It would be nice to see it all labelled up to explain what everything on it is, for us laymen who may wander in here. Especially which end is the front end. It may be obvious to you guys, but, well, call me ignorant …
October 4, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Patience :-) I am, even as we speak, working on a basic-vertebral-anatomy tutorial, based on illustrations of this very same bone! For now, though the front of the bone is to the left: that ball you can see below the sticking-out bits fits neatly into a socket in the back of the next vertebra.
October 4, 2007 at 12:28 pm
This is probably going to be my new favorite blog. Really… I spent all day yesterday trying to figure out what a prezygapophyses is…and here it is, right in front of my eyes.
I’ve been reading your blogs and any collaborative work by the three of you is bound to be entertaining.
October 4, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Aww, shucks..
There will be humour. Do keep visiting.
October 4, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Thanks, Amanda, that’s very encouraging! And, maybe, just a little bit scary. There’s a proper sauropod-anatomy tutorial coming soon, but in the mean time, you may find this page from the Dinosaur FAQ useful: Old music-hall joke: I say, I say, I say! What’s the difference between a centroparapophyseal lamina and a spinoprezygopophyseal lamina? (Sorry about the truly horrible pictures with the finger-like zygapophyses.)
October 4, 2007 at 3:27 pm
The Old music hall joke page is excellent.
BTW, what is the punch line? :-)
October 4, 2007 at 4:01 pm
The punchline is: “Well, I’m not sending you to post my letters, then”.
November 30, 2007 at 11:29 am
113 cm???
Doesn´t Sauroposeidon has a 120 cm vertebra????
or 120 cm are without prezygapophyses?
November 30, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Asier,
You can learn all you ever wanted to know about Sauroposeidon from Matt’s publications at http://sauroposeidon.net/cv.html#pubs
But, briefly, you have UNDERestimated the length of its cervicals: the longest preserved element is C8, which has a 125 cm centrum, and a total length of 140 cm including the overhanging prezygapophyses. It’s not small.
November 30, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Oh, great
thanks
October 13, 2008 at 10:48 pm
[…] SV-POW!’s first birthday. Yes, it’s been just over a year since the very first post, Hello world!, showed us the Brachiosaurus brancai cervical vertebra HMN SII:C8 that we have seen so many times […]
January 16, 2013 at 10:14 am
[…] the closest thing to the Platonic Ideal sauropod vertebra: it’s the eighth cervical of our old friend the Giraffatitan brancai paralectotype MB.R.2181. (previously known as “Brachiosaurus” […]
October 11, 2015 at 4:56 pm
[…] the eighth cervical of MB.R.2181 — is a very old friend: in fact, it was the subject of the first ever SV-POW! post, back in […]
October 27, 2016 at 11:00 pm
[…] again. In fact a very special bone, the 8th cervical of Giraffatitan individual SII featured in the very first post […]
November 28, 2016 at 1:41 pm
[…] blog is nine years old. Since Matt and I are both still enjoying it, there’s no reason think it won’t still be […]
October 1, 2017 at 9:08 pm
[…] (to me, anyway), SV-POW! is ten years old today. It was on 1st October 2007 that we published Hello world!, our first post, featuring a picture of what may still be our favourite single sauropod vertebra: […]
June 22, 2018 at 8:17 pm
[…] shorthand for A. louisae, the same way that their respective C8s seem to capture the essence of Giraffatitan and […]
August 12, 2019 at 8:36 am
[…] a bit shocking to find that SV-POW! is going on for twelve years old. (Our very first post was on 1st October 2007, so we’re about fifty days short of that […]
October 1, 2022 at 8:42 am
[…] years ago to the day, as a sort of jokey riff on NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day. Our first post, on 1 October 2007, was a photograph of what we called “the most iconic of sauropod vertebrae, the 8th cervical […]